


Masquerade

by melian225



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, F/M, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Second War with Voldemort, Slytherin, Slytherins Being Slytherins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 13:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14498448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melian225/pseuds/melian225
Summary: Right, I thought, it’s time. Get into character.  Prepare for school.I needed to get into character because the person I was at school wasn’t the same person I was at home. That is, my opinions and attitudes and the like were generally the same, but there was one key difference. At school, everyone thought I was in love with Draco Malfoy.





	Masquerade

**Author's Note:**

> Text in bold is from pp 144-5 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, UK edition paperback.

I woke with a start, the alarm clock ringing shrilly next to my ear. Pointing my wand at it to shut it up, I rolled over and groaned, pulling the pillow to over my head as the awful truth hit me. Today was the day.

That is, the day I’d been dreading since summer holidays started. The day I’d have to get into character and stay there for a good four months. The day I went back to school.

The door opened and Mum popped her head around it. “You getting up, Pansy dear?” she asked. I peeked out from behind my pillow. “You don’t want to be late for the train.” She opened the door further and stepped into the room, disbelief etched on her face. “You haven’t even started packing yet?”

Oh, that. Right. “I’ll do it, Mum,” I grunted, sitting up in bed slowly. “It’s all there, I just need to put it into the trunk.”

“But it’s almost nine o’clock!” she said, her hands firmly placed on her hips. “You’ve only got an hour before we have to leave!”

I just rubbed my eyes and looked at her. “ _Pack_ ,” I said, pointing my wand at the piles of clothes, spellbooks, and shoes on my floor. Obediently they started putting themselves neatly into the trunk, not faltering until everything was in there and the trunk was full. I looked at Mum again. “Happy now?”

She was clearly flummoxed. “Where did you learn that?” she eventually got out.

I shrugged. “Draco’s house elf taught me,” I said offhandedly. “I thought it might be a useful skill.”

_Yep_ , I thought, _useful in case I ever need to make a hasty exit from bloody Malfoy Manor. In case it all gets to be too much and I nearly lose it. Or worse, expose myself for what I really am_.

These thoughts meant that I missed most of what Mum was saying, but it didn’t really matter. I was sixteen, almost seventeen, and soon I wouldn’t need to live by her rules any more.

“And what about the rules about underage magic,” I caught her muttering.

Pulling myself out of bed, I caught her eye again. “Mum, in six weeks I’ll be seventeen anyway. I’m not the only witch in this house so no one can prove it was me, and in any case how am I supposed to practice things so I don’t forget them, if I’m not allowed to use magic?”

“I suppose,” she said, still a little flustered.

“Anyway,” I went on, “do you mind? I’d like a bit of peace and quiet before the bustle of the train.”

“Right. Of course. I’ll leave you to it. Come down to breakfast when you’re ready, okay love?”

I looked pointedly at her and she hurriedly shut the door and disappeared. _Right_ , I thought, _it’s time. Get into character.  Prepare for school._

I needed to get into character because the person I was at school wasn’t the same person I was at home. That is, my opinions and attitudes and the like were generally the same, but there was one key difference. At school, everyone thought I was in love with Draco Malfoy.

We’d been together for ages. I didn’t even think there had been a specific start date, it had just happened that way. Or at least, that was what I wanted people to think, that we had just been destined for each other. The truth was that I had chosen him very deliberately quite early on and had carefully worked my way to his side, making sure I was always nearby when he needed to turn to someone and simpering on cue when he needed to feel important and wanted.

And at the start, it hadn’t been that ghastly. He was a nice looking boy and his technique, while a little clumsy at first, wasn’t bad. I’d chosen him because I wanted to be powerful, and I had just enough brains to realise that I’d never achieve that on my own, so attaching myself to a powerful man seemed the obvious way to go. And Draco was the clear choice in my year at Hogwarts – Crabbe and Goyle were just gorillas and even thicker than I was, Nott was too much of a loner, and Blaise … while he might have eventually become powerful, I didn’t think he was all that interested in it. Besides, he was remarkably fussy with who he went out with and so probably wouldn’t have gone for me anyway. I wasn’t that bad looking – not like Millicent Bulstrode, who Daphne would say rather charitably that the ugly fairy must have kissed on both cheeks – but I wasn’t stunning, either, and Blaise only went for the real lookers. No, Draco had been my best bet, particularly with his father having been all chummy with the Minister and all that: I could definitely see myself as the wife of a high-ranking official or even Minister himself.

Oh, there were others, of course, who might have served a similar purpose – Potter would definitely be powerful, for example – but really, do you seriously think I could have gone out with someone who wasn’t in Slytherin? Puh-lease!

So Draco it was. He seemed willing enough, especially since I wasn’t all that fussed about how far we went. I even let him think he was my first. After all, if I could get him that involved then I would have a decent chance of hanging on to him, particularly if we miscast the contraceptive charm and I ended up pregnant. He might have been a bit of a tosser but he did have a strong sense of honour and if I was carrying his child he’d almost definitely marry me. Food for thought … especially if I wanted to get out of school before the end of seventh year. Maybe I should have made more of an effort to get that charm wrong …

But I digress.

Yes, Draco was the obvious choice and he was even enthusiastic, though that may have just been the hormones taking over, particularly considering that I was willing to do what most other girls weren’t. But that had been a couple of years ago and since then he’d, um, developed in a way that I didn’t necessarily like. Conceited and narcissistic and arrogant – yes I could stand those to a point, but he’d gone a bit overboard. And so full of his own importance! He hadn’t worked out that the world didn’t revolve around him and the Malfoy family, old and pure as they might be. Even I knew that to be a Malfoy didn’t make you royalty – unless your last name was actually Slytherin, I didn’t think you could rest on your family’s name too much. And the Slytherin line has died out anyway so in my opinion the whole thing was more a wank than anything else. All in all, I was beginning to loathe him.

So yeah, I had to psych myself up a bit to become the pathetic adoring creature everyone at Hogwarts thought I was. That was, start simpering at whatever Draco said and use my body to draw him in when I didn’t think I could make it believable any other way. You know the sort of thing, put his hand on my boob or down my pants, that always worked.

It was getting harder and harder, though (no pun intended), to keep pulling it off like that. (Again, no pun inten- oh, forget it.) The more he went on about his father and joining the Death Eaters and all that sort of thing, the more difficult it was to sound interested. Really, it was only the promise of power that was keeping me there at all. Draco was incredibly self-absorbed and a terrible drama queen when things didn’t go his way, and my sympathy stockpile was getting remarkably low.

I’d seen Draco a couple of times over the summer, but only for a couple of days at a time and it was easy enough to become Pathetic Pansy for short periods, even when those periods were full of Draco grumbling about how unfair it was that his father had been sent to Azkaban and “didn’t those clowns in the Ministry know who he WAS?” And you can fake anything when you’re only corresponding by owl – I even sent a couple of really stupid messages saying something like “I’m dying without you” or something equally cheesy, and he seemed to buy it. So that got him off my back, so to speak, and I could spend most of the summer actually enjoying myself. There was a rather cute Muggle boy who lived just a few houses down, and I made a bit of a project out of trying to seduce him when I was being myself rather than that simpering and doting caricature I played at school, just to see if it would work.

It did. Oh, it was a lovely summer, much of it naked and sweaty and not caring about the future. No wonder I didn’t want to go back to school. And the previous night, as a farewell, could only have been described as spectacular. But I digress again. After all, a Muggle boy, no matter how cute, would never have done as a long-term partner. We Parkinsons did have some pride.

I closed my trunk and shut my eyes, breathing deeply. It was already half past nine and I only had half an hour before we had to leave to get to London. Dad had organised a taxi to get us there so I’d have to sit in the back making small talk with Mum on the way. And that meant that I would have to be in character before we got into the taxi, as it took me a little while to get the simpering right and I couldn’t do it on the platform. Not with everyone else I knew there, when it might be witnessed. After all, this was the real thing – not a day or two of acting, but absolutely living the character. I couldn’t falter, not even for a moment. Pathetic Pansy had to be there permanently.

I opened my eyes and checked my appearance in the mirror. Okay, I thought to myself, do the checklist.  Sappy, adoring face? Tick. Breathless voice? Tick. Heaving bosom? Tick. Convincing expression of interest / sympathy / concern? Tick.

It really wasn’t easy, doing that sort of thing all the time. But I kept practicing as I showered and dressed and was pretty much in character by the time I headed downstairs for a bit of toast and tea. And I kept it going all the way to Kings Cross station, feeling as I got out of the taxi that Draco could show up whenever he wanted. I was ...

"Ready, hon?” asked Dad, making me giggle a little as he had no idea of what he had really asked.

“Absolutely, Dad,” I beamed. _Might as well do this thing properly_ , I thought. He helped me push my trunk towards the train as I looked around at the other students.

The first one from my year that I spotted was Granger, working her way through the crowds with Weasley scurrying after her like a devoted pet. That would be right. I didn’t even have to fake my dislike of her, though I would never have admitted to any of my schoolmates that it was due to jealousy. After all, envy of a Mudblood was one of the last taboos that even I baulked at breaking publicly. Not only was she smart, but she was treated with respect and the boys she hung around with didn’t even consider that as a girl she might have had a lower social status than they did. Even Potter, who just about everyone who wasn’t in Slytherin looked up to, looked up to her, in his own way. Yep, I was definitely jealous.

Thing was, of course, that she was a Mudblood. Muggle-born. How someone like that could be so good at magic had to be one of the most unfair things about life. I mean, wasn’t the whole point about magic that it was the domain of the pure-bloods, that the rest were unworthy? The whole thing made no sense, really – how could she be unworthy if she topped every class? Not that I was completely convinced by the whole pure-blood thing anyway: if we hadn’t married a few Muggles along the way we would have died out by now. It was better to be as pure as possible, of course, but it wasn’t the be-all and end-all of everything. _Oh well_ , I thought, scowling at the back of her head as she took off towards the front of the train, _just more thing to mull over when Draco’s spouting off again._

And speaking of Draco … there he was. He’d grown a bit since I’d last seen him about a month earlier, but he still had the sneer and, if I was hearing correctly, the drawl that he’d always had. Draco had a very firmly-entrenched sense of his own importance and couldn’t understand it when others didn’t agree with him, so naturally Pathetic Pansy thought he was incredibly important. Real Pansy didn’t, of course, but that was irrelevant. Real Pansy wouldn’t be making another appearance until she got home for Christmas.

That was if Draco didn’t invite me to spend them with him again. I almost shuddered at the thought before I caught myself and stopped the action. _No, Pansy, not good enough_. _Smile. You’re supposed to adore him._

“Look Mum, Dad, there’s Draco,” I said breathlessly, convincing even myself with my enthusiasm. “I’d better go. See you at Christmas!”

On my way over to him I went past Daphne, who was the closest thing I had to a friend at school. Let’s face it, in Slytherin we didn’t make friends, we cultivated contacts. Daphne was in all likelihood as shallow and manipulative as I was – we were in Slytherin for a reason – but we pretended each other’s facades were the real thing, never digging to find out what was really underneath, and were reasonably close. I stopped pushing my trolley and we gave each other air kisses by way of greeting.

“Daphne!” I gushed. “How lovely to see you! How was your summer?”

She gave me that smile that looked fake and probably was. “Simply exquisite,” she gushed back. “I had the most _amazing_ time in Paris. Next time you really _must_ come with me!”

Fake, Hogwarts Daphne probably meant it. I was sure that whoever she was hiding underneath that perfectly made-up face probably didn’t, though.

“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” I said with a smile. “And all about _him_.” This was a guess, that there was a boy involved, but from the way she blushed it looked like I was right.

“Later,” she promised. “And you can tell me everything you and Draco did to each other over the summer! I want _every_ minute detail.”

Pathetic Pansy smiled again. Substitute cute Muggle boy for Draco and I would have all sorts of tales to tell. “Oh, I will,” I gushed again. “But he’s right there and I just _can’t_ stay away from him much longer.”

I was perfectly in character as I got to Draco, where he was lording it over Crabbe and Goyle like he usually did. I was even breathless from the anticipation of seeing him again.

“Draco!” I squealed, wrapping my arms around him, making sure he could feel my boobs pressing into him and letting my hand drop to his rear end. Sex was an easy way to keep hold of him and it also meant that we didn’t have to talk much, because even Pathetic Pansy had to draw the line somewhere. Fortunately his ego had been growing fairly significantly in the past couple of years so I suspected he wouldn’t want much by way of conversation anyway, preferring instead the adulation I heaped on him. Draco wasn’t the type to appreciate a girl with strong opinions and thoughts, he just wanted his own personal fan club. And if the sex was good enough he would probably be so self-absorbed during term that he would barely notice me in any other context. “How have you been? I missed you so much!”

“Pansy!” he drawled. He looked a little uncomfortable at the public display of affection but he corners of his mouth were starting to twitch upwards a little and I could tell he liked the physical side of it, if nothing else. I thought momentarily of putting his hand on my boob, but my parents could have still been on the platform and they had all sorts of misconceptions about their little girl that I didn’t want to ruin just yet. “Have a nice summer?” Draco went on, casting a quick look around to see who was watching before reaching briefly for the spot between my legs and giving it a rub. I hoped my parents didn’t see that one.

“Not as good as it would have been if you were there,” I said with a sappy smile. I almost believed myself, it was that convincing. It was a pity acting was looked down upon as a profession, because otherwise I thought I might have found my true calling.

No. The only power in acting was if you managed to get your claws into a powerful man, which was what I’d been doing for the past couple of years anyway. So I wouldn’t be an actress – not professionally, anyway. And it wasn’t even all acting – to be honest I was quite enjoying the physical sensation of his hands on me, and if I shut my eyes I could almost think he was someone else. Like that cute Muggle boy who really knew his way around a girl’s body …

I digress again.

We all got onto the train, Draco barking orders at Crabbe and Goyle to find us a compartment that we could converge on once he and I had finished our duties in the Prefect carriage. When we found them not far into the journey we discovered that Blaise had deigned to join us as well, though he disappeared at lunch time to go see a teacher I’d never heard of, just because he was asked to.

It was a very agreeable journey. Before long Draco decided to make the most of the emptiness of the carriage and lay down across the seat with his head in my lap, probably because it put his eyes in direct line with my boobs. To complete the charade I started brushing the hair off his forehead lovingly, pushing my features into their most adoring expression.

Eventually Blaise came back, fumbling uncharacteristically with the door and tripping over Goyle in the process, and Draco plied him with questions about the lunch. I could tell he was pissed off he hadn’t been invited himself but he tried to hide it, not very convincingly, by saying that he didn’t care about school much anymore anyway.

**“I mean,”** he drawled even more superciliously than usual, **“I might not even be at Hogwarts next year, what’s it matter to me if some fat old has-been likes me or not?”**

I stopped grooming him, almost alarmed. This was news to me, and if he wasn’t going to be at school next year I wanted to know about it. So I found my most indignant voice and asked him what the hell he was on about. In nicer words, of course.

**“Well, you never know,”** Draco smirked. **“I might have – er – moved on to bigger and better things.”**

I got even more alarmed. Was he talking about the Dark Lord? Everyone knew that Lord Voldemort wasn’t happy with Draco’s father after that shemozzle at the Ministry, so if Draco was doing something for the Death Eaters then that was practically a death sentence. And after all that hard work I’d put in! I shook my head slightly, almost dumbfounded that he could be so stupid. I mean, even Draco wasn’t that thick … was he?

**“Do you mean – _Him_?”** I asked, almost dreading the answer.

Draco shrugged and said something that sounded like he was acting on the Dark Lord’s orders, but could have been interpreted almost any way. Fortunately Blaise was even more sceptical than I was, and the more Draco tried to explain himself (without giving anything away, of course), the more he just sounded like he was making things up to sound important.

Important. Of course. Pathetic Pansy thought he was the most important person in the world. I looked at him with an expression of admiration and went back to stroking his hair like my life depended on it.

The day was wearing on and school was getting closer and closer, and Draco remarked that we should think about getting our robes on. That meant that we were almost there, I suddenly realised. Sixth year was going to be difficult - NEWT-level classes and a self-absorbed boyfriend meant that I was going to have to put in a whole lot more effort to keep myself going than I had previously, and effort wasn’t something I was all that good at. (If I could manage effort on a regular basis I’d have been in Hufflepuff, wouldn’t I?) But I hoped this big secret Draco was hinting at – if it was actually real – would mean that he would be out of my hands for at least some of the time, and I’d be able to eavesdrop on Granger in order to stay on top of my schoolwork. And while Draco, with whatever this project was, would probably become even more egocentric and frankly irritating, he would at least be thinking about it and not me.

And, I thought as he lay with his head back on my lap, maybe the Dark Lord – if Draco was in fact telling the truth and he _had_ been given a project – had actually done me a favour in giving him a task that would occupy a bit of his time.  With the mess his father got into at the Ministry I wasn’t surprised he’d agreed to take on some extra responsibility there (there was that sense of honour again) but it was an act to convince people I actually cared. I smiled to myself as I ran my fingers through his hair in an affectionate way, proud of my caricature of a doting girlfriend.

Oh, this need to have power. Sometimes I thought it would be my undoing. But the thirst, the desire was still there, so until I found someone more likely to have power in the future than Draco, frustrating and infuriating as he was, I thought I’d better hang on to him. And maybe forget that contraceptive charm, just once or twice. Like I said, he had a ridiculous sense of honour, so it could have been my best bet to hang onto him, especially if he ever worked out what I really thought of him.

I smiled again as the train finally pulled into Hogsmeade station and we stood up to depart the train. _Watch out, Draco, watch out, Hogwarts_ , I thought. _Pansy Parkinson is here. And don’t even think of standing in her way._

 


End file.
